Life of Brian
1989
Freshman
(A first-year student at a university, college, or high school)
Nordhoff High School. The last campus on the roster. The final four years of public school. For me, this would be the last place I would set foot in a classroom where a teacher would try to embed knowledge into my brain. Ninety-five-point eight percent of the time my brain was opposed to this notion. School was boring, there were few subjects that sparked my interest, nor was my brain actually capable of retaining what it did find remotely interesting. After reassuring myself that I lacked confidence, I decided to enroll in a P.E. class rather than try out for one of the high school teams. Football would have been the first sport of the year, and I had never played anything other than yard tackle football or flag football at Matilija. Excelling at neither of the above mentioned, P.E. was my only path. I made it one week in P.E. I discovered on the first day, that it appeared all the boys in P.E. were kids who shall we say, didn't give a rat's ass, about much. These were kids who I knew to be bullies in middle school. Kids that didn't necessarily follow the rules. Kids that like to swear more than use the common English language. P.E. was a downright scary place. This opened my eyes to the possibility of trying out for the Nordhoff basketball team after football season was over. It was a great motivator to try my best to get on the team. I did not under any circumstances want to be stuck in physical education. Having dropped P.E., I was able to choose another elective. I chose a combination drafting and architecture class. This might have been my favorite class in my entire four years of High School. The teacher seemed to be a cool guy, the drawings were fun to complete, and in the second semester we were able to create our own floor plans and design our own house. I would end up taking this class all four years. The last of which would end my desires to become an architect or draftsperson. My senior year would see the introduction of auto cad. Drawing on computers might have been the newest thing, but I hated it. I'd much rather throw some scummex on a piece of paper and start penciling in lines with a real pencil, and a T square, and angles. Another reason was I found out just how involved architectural drawings are in the real world. Elevation this, cut out of that, substructures, blah, blah, blah. I wasn't good at math either and it appeared I would need to be. Mr. Lepas was our teacher (forgive me if I spelled his name incorrectly) and he was indeed a little spitfire. I believe he may have been of Greek descent, and he did not put up with shenanigans. He was absent one week due to jury duty. We had a sub who did not know one thing about architecture. He was noticeably just there as a filler. Some kids saw this as a green light for mayhem. Pencils were thrown, scummex pads were launched across the room, the decibel levels inside the classroom reached ear bleed levels. What the dumb kids didn't think about, was that this sub would surely write a report that Mr. Lepas would inevitably read! It didn't take very many seconds of the first class upon his return to set us straight on what he expected of us from there on out. I recall him mentioning things like, "First punch is free!" This was a challenge to any kid who thought they were tough. He proposed letting them take the first punch, and then he'd open a can of whoop ass on them, proposedly! He loved his career so I highly doubt this ever would have happened. He asserted himself nicely however in the eyes of the rebellion as they were good as gold anytime we had a sub thereafter.
For dumb kids like me, algebra was split in to two classes. Algebra A, and algebra B. I did just fine in A, passing with a solid D. My teacher in algebra B however was an actual grumpy individual. His finger was crooked on his writing hand, and his attitude was crooked all the time! He did not like kids to ask questions. If he explained it once, there was no reason why you'd need him to explain it AGAIN! Again was my middle name when it came to learning. Again and again and again and again actually! This may have been the first F on my progress report. I don't know how I managed to pull out of the F and secure a beautiful D in that class, but I did. My oldest sister had already graduated by the time I made it to Nordhoff, but my other sister was a Junior I believe. I don't know why I felt like mentioning this, we never really interacted much as far as I remember. I would try out for the basketball team and actually make the team! Luckily there were three teams. Varsity, J.V. and frosh soph. I would make it on to the frosh/soph team. As I had learned in middle school, being on a team was fun. You got to travel to away games, which meant getting out of class early on occasion. It also meant eating out, and it meant spending time with dudes you got along with and shared common interests. So, the bus rides were always fun. High School was by far, proving to be much better then middle school.
The outside world was a scary place in the late eighties. I'm sure many of you remember the events at Tiananmen Square. I remember watching that man standing in front of that massive tank in defiance. I really didn't know what it was about at the age of fourteen, I just knew that whatever drew that man to a display of defiance, to stand in front of a military tank and not budge, must have been something he felt very strongly about, strong enough to die over it. I knew nothing of the communist government in China. In the United Kingdom, 95 civilians would die at a sporting event. These poor people were crushed to death at an overcrowded stadium. The 96th death would come seven years later. The last person to die had been in a coma for those seven years since the incident. President George Bush, and Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev met to discuss the end of the cold war. The Exxon Valdez would run aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound spilling around eleven million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. I remember seeing pictures of birds covered in oil. The Soviets would withdraw from Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict that resulted in a stalemate. Serial killer Ted Bundy was executed in Florida.
89 would be the year I went on a trip up to northern Ca. to visit my uncle. This would be a multi-day trip with my dad and my Uncle Raymond. We would use my uncle's truck, a single cab Mitsubishi standard transmission small truck. My Dad being six foot two roughly, and my uncle being five foot eleven, made for a tight fit inside the cab of that truck. It wasn't comfortable for sure, but I didn't care. It was a fun trip in which I'd get to meet my dad's oldest brother and his son. Along the way, we'd get to eat some insanely tasty, canned salmon that a friend of my Uncle Raymond had personally made. I'd never been to Northern California before. It's a beautiful place indeed with all the tree's everywhere. We checked in to our hotel room upon arrival and then went out to have dinner and what not. Upon return to our room, we noticed things were kind of out of sorts from when we had left. I still don't believe my dad and uncle, but they claim that somebody had entered our room while we were gone and taken a shower. They were adamant about this, but nothing had been stolen, so we remained in that same room the entire stay. I'm not sure why it was just the three of us that went on this trip. I wonder what my mom and sisters were doing back in Ojai.
Our summer trip to New Mexico included my oldest sister's boyfriend this year. I think his last name was Crappy, or something like that. We camped at Zion National Park on this trip and my parents purchased us inner tubes to raft down the river on. Myself, Mr. Crappy, and my sister were all having a grand time with this activity until I 'accidentally' ran Crappy over on some rapids. He was a military guy and didn't like the fact that I had just pummeled him with my tube. After re surfacing from the river, he was angry. His precious sunglasses had gotten wet, and his pride had been dampened. Surely, he understood it must have been an accident and not intentional. I mean really, mother nature is in charge of flow dynamics of that river, not me! He would end that trip accusing me of intentionally trying to drown him, as well as blaming my mom of intentionally breaking his sunglasses. My mother would buy him a new pair because she is a nice person. She had nothing to do with his glasses breaking. Luckily, he and my sister traveled in a separate car, so we at least didn't have to listen to his bickering down the interstate. I don't believe they dated much longer after that trip.
Inflation was at 4.83%. Interest rates were at 10.5%. Homes on average throughout the country cost around $120,000.00. The average American citizen was making just $27,450.00 a year. Average rents hovered near the $400 a month mark. New cars were in the ballpark of $15,000.00. Gas per gallon, .97 cents. A ham and cheese pizza set you back $2.59. Rib Eye steaks averaged $3.79 per pound.
In researching movies of 1989, I actually don't recognize a single movie listed. Some titles that came up include, Twister, Cousins, Roger and Me, and For All Mankind. I may have watched For All Mankind in the past decade. Movies really aren't an interest of mine. Wait a minute! 1989 was the year one of my all-time favorite movies was released! National Lampoons Christmas Vacation! I absolutely love that movie and watch it every year around Christmas. Popular songs included Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler. Eternal Flame, Bangles. Love Shack, B-52's, and Lost in Your Eyes, by Debbie Gibson. There were some really good T.V. shows in 89. LA Law, The Wonder Years, Family Ties, and Dynasty.
My freshman year was sort of the beginning of a time in my life where family was not as unified as years past. My sisters had their own friends. They had jobs, as well as my oldest sister attending college in SLO. My parents were very busy with their jobs. My mom would clean up to three houses a day, very hard work indeed. This meant I had a lot of time to myself. I'd hike in the mountains every weekend. Sometimes I'd take the family dog with me. I never felt the need to be around others. However, people watching is something I enjoy taking part of to this day. People are very interesting; I just don't like having to pretend I get along with the majority of them! lol. My cousin Mike would take me on trips to Pismo to ride quads. That was epic fun! I cannot thank he and Lynn enough for taking me on those outings. He would also let me drive his truck on dirt roads up Quatal Canyon. It might have just been once actually, but nevertheless, my first attempt at driving a stick. He and I went on a 4x4 trip up around Lake arrowhead one year. On the first day of the trip, as we started up a fairly narly road that definitely required four-wheel drive, we began hearing a very loud banging noise. Like someone was using a sledgehammer against a piece of sheet metal. We were both perplexed and our brains could not figure out what this noise could be coming from. The noise kept getting closer and closer to us when eventually a tow truck emerged uphill from us. Behind it was a VW van. I don't believe there was ever a four-wheel drive model made for this particular vehicle. This one was certainly just two-wheel drive. The tow truck dragged it down that nasty road, bumping and clanging and banging all the way down. That vehicle had to have been toast by the time the tow truck got it back to pavement. We scratched our heads as to why this type of vehicle was up that road! My Uncle would take me fishing on charter boats off the coast of Ventura. As I mention constantly, I was very lucky to have family around to provide all of these opportunities. Times were a changing, that is for sure. I'd soon have a job of my own. I'd start
"We can move on because we do weather here, not play baby doll house rumpity dump rump kisser waa waaa cabbage patch kids..."
- Southern California Weather Force Guy 2023.
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